27 ms·

It is so exciting that people have started to couple the creation of offices with the creation of housing!

yourapostasy 12y ago
It unfortunately won't really solve the housing and housing-related challenges that the article portrayed stirring up so much vocal ire in MV. Many of the adverse effects (traffic congestion, pollution, rising property taxes, etc.) are first- and second-order effects of real estate pricing increases, and simply allocating land for residential development won't retard those increases. One possible way to short-circuit those pricing increases is for an employer to lock down a very large tract, and never let parcels in it exchange ownership again. Structure an ownership model where employees still buy into their parcel under a co-op style or leasehold ownership, with all such proceeds minus operational expenses (property taxes, insurance, maintenance, repair, etc.) dumped into a total market index fund/fund-set (with communally-voted percentage of gains allocated to improvements and/or expansion) or at employee discretion into a money-market fund, and when employees leave employ and residence, their share of proceeds they put in plus their share of gains (if any) are returned to them. This locks in the underlying price basis to inception year which all future employees' residential costs are biased towards, retards real estate inflation in the tract's parcels to just imputed value assigned for property tax purposes by the municipality, captures and redirects overall real estate inflation effects upon wages into salaries and the fund, which ends up as real inflation-adjusted income in employees' hands when they leave. Employers like Google who want the accompanying productivity benefits of ancillary services like on-campus dining get manifold benefits from structuring a residential community right around the office. Including but not limited to: 10 minute commute for everyone leaving more time to enjoy life and work, no cars inside the tract with only biking/walking/PRT delivering increased health benefits and lower healthcare costs, coordinated massive volume purchasing of residential services in a single geographic location making possible even more time saving services like landscaping/housekeeping/childcare/laundry/handyman/insurance, etc. In an already-developed community like MV, cultural/entertainment/shopping venues are sure to sprout along the borders of such a tract to give variety, if such venues are not already woven throughout the community. There are secondary cost savings from choosing to plan on the decades-long timeline of such a development built as a single project. For Google specifically, heat co-generation from data centers can be redirected for use in the residential areas. All residences can be constructed to say something like PassivHaus standards to use 1/5 to 1/10 of normal energy, and simultaneously mount solar PV everywhere there is a roof or shading desired. These energy savings drop straight to the bottom line as decreased compensation inflation pressure over time. Cooperation and integration with the wider community's educational and healthcare institutions can accommodate exception cases like special needs education and high-end healthcare, without blowing out costs or compromising quality of on-campus schooling and healthcare. The entire tract's property taxes can be negotiated on a commercial (commonly given more leeway in most municipalities) basis in a single negotiation more likely to yield lower individual property taxes per residence. The cost is reduced location choice for the employees who voluntarily choose to live in the tract, and when to move away; but real estate inflation has generally economically segregated most metro areas and already reduced choices, and residential moves already commonly accompany job changes as increased traffic congestion in most metro areas make all but the most short geographic distance disparities between old and new jobs very grueling. There are also many cultural costs to address commonly associated with "company town"-type issues; homogenized and boring (though others have pointed out boring is a feature not a bug for many though not all when raising a family) milieu, stifling social setting, etc. Many possible trade offs and solutions for these challenges, though. There are variations of this kind of company town development around the world. The largest and most comprehensive ones I know of are Kiruna in Sweden and the various towns run by Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia. They aren't a panacea, and there are more drawbacks I haven't covered, but they are very effective at controlling direct and indirect COL costs that put upward salary pressure on a company that are out of most companies' control, without significantly compromising quality of life for median employees. There is enormous cultural pressure against this sort of tactic, however. Not least of which is the tremendous buy-in of the general public (including tech industry participants) to the sales story of ever-increasing housing prices as an integral part of every family's financial planning. If you are in any industry outside of real estate and its related sibling industries, it is to your ultimate advantage to treat most real estate and its related operational costs (that is, virtually all price increases past inception of land purchase) as a straight deadweight loss. Aside from real estate and related companies, real estate is a large factor typically in companies in trouble (like Sears or Radio Shack) or in commoditized industries (like McDonalds), but only because of real estate's unique asset characteristics due to many economic/tax/financial/legal structural factors that no other asset possesses in the same combination. If you are a Google or a GM, you want your investors/customers/employees to know you for what you innovate and do, not your real estate holdings, because that is where the big growth multipliers are to be consistently found in the future.

It unfortunately won't really solve the housing and housing-related challenges that the article portrayed stirring up so much vocal ire in MV. Many of the adverse effects (traffic congestion, pollution, rising property taxes, etc.) are first- and second-order effects of real estate pricing increases, and simply allocating land for residential development won't retard those increases. One possible way to short-circuit those pricing increases is for an employer to lock down a very large tract, and never let parcels in it exchange ownership again. Structure an ownership model where employees still buy into their parcel under a co-op style or leasehold ownership, with all such proceeds minus operational expenses (property taxes, insurance, maintenance, repair, etc.) dumped into a total market index fund/fund-set (with communally-voted percentage of gains allocated to improvements and/or expansion) or at employee discretion into a money-market fund, and when employees leave employ and residence, their share of proceeds they put in plus their share of gains (if any) are returned to them. This locks in the underlying price basis to inception year which all future employees' residential costs are biased towards, retards real estate inflation in the tract's parcels to just imputed value assigned for property tax purposes by the municipality, captures and redirects overall real estate inflation effects upon wages into salaries and the fund, which ends up as real inflation-adjusted income in employees' hands when they leave. Employers like Google who want the accompanying productivity benefits of ancillary services like on-campus dining get manifold benefits from structuring a residential community right around the office. Including but not limited to: 10 minute commute for everyone leaving more time to enjoy life and work, no cars inside the tract with only biking/walking/PRT delivering increased health benefits and lower healthcare costs, coordinated massive volume purchasing of residential services in a single geographic location making possible even more time saving services like landscaping/housekeeping/childcare/laundry/handyman/insurance, etc. In an already-developed community like MV, cultural/entertainment/shopping venues are sure to sprout along the borders of such a tract to give variety, if such venues are not already woven throughout the community. There are secondary cost savings from choosing to plan on the decades-long timeline of such a development built as a single project. For Google specifically, heat co-generation from data centers can be redirected for use in the residential areas. All residences can be constructed to say something like PassivHaus standards to use 1/5 to 1/10 of normal energy, and simultaneously mount solar PV everywhere there is a roof or shading desired. These energy savings drop straight to the bottom line as decreased compensation inflation pressure over time. Cooperation and integration with the wider community's educational and healthcare institutions can accommodate exception cases like special needs education and high-end healthcare, without blowing out costs or compromising quality of on-campus schooling and healthcare. The entire tract's property taxes can be negotiated on a commercial (commonly given more leeway in most municipalities) basis in a single negotiation more likely to yield lower individual property taxes per residence. The cost is reduced location choice for the employees who voluntarily choose to live in the tract, and when to move away; but real estate inflation has generally economically segregated most metro areas and already reduced choices, and residential moves already commonly accompany job changes as increased traffic congestion in most metro areas make all but the most short geographic distance disparities between old and new jobs very grueling. There are also many cultural costs to address commonly associated with "company town"-type issues; homogenized and boring (though others have pointed out boring is a feature not a bug for many though not all when raising a family) milieu, stifling social setting, etc. Many possible trade offs and solutions for these challenges, though. There are variations of this kind of company town development around the world. The largest and most comprehensive ones I know of are Kiruna in Sweden and the various towns run by Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia. They aren't a panacea, and there are more drawbacks I haven't covered, but they are very effective at controlling direct and indirect COL costs that put upward salary pressure on a company that are out of most companies' control, without significantly compromising quality of life for median employees. There is enormous cultural pressure against this sort of tactic, however. Not least of which is the tremendous buy-in of the general public (including tech industry participants) to the sales story of ever-increasing housing prices as an integral part of every family's financial planning. If you are in any industry outside of real estate and its related sibling industries, it is to your ultimate advantage to treat most real estate and its related operational costs (that is, virtually all price increases past inception of land purchase) as a straight deadweight loss. Aside from real estate and related companies, real estate is a large factor typically in companies in trouble (like Sears or Radio Shack) or in commoditized industries (like McDonalds), but only because of real estate's unique asset characteristics due to many economic/tax/financial/legal structural factors that no other asset possesses in the same combination. If you are a Google or a GM, you want your investors/customers/employees to know you for what you innovate and do, not your real estate holdings, because that is where the big growth multipliers are to be consistently found in the future.